When You're Gone
by rippingbutterflywings
Summary: What happens to Alex after the ending of Delirium? Read it and find out. One-shot. :


**Hi guys! I (again) forgot to do THIS, so I uploaded it before...this. Sigh. I'm just like that. ;)  
>SO MANY THINGS.<br>I started a new school. It's going pretty good so far. I've made friends, yes. UMMM. I know I haven't written a fanfic in awhile, but...*shrugs* I PLAN ON IT. Before the end of the year. It'll probably be a Vampire Academy one, because I ADORE that series, and I CANNOT wait to read Bloodlines! ADRIAN! LOVE!**

**Anyway.**

**Thanks to maxwaylandgrey for reading it before I uploaded it. OUR CONVERSATIONS (also, my conversations with my friend Brielle) INSPIRED THIS FANFIC. OUR THEORIES!**

**Uh, yeah. So, MagicWeMade did not read this AND I AM SO SORRY, BUT YOU HAVE NOT READ DELIRIUM AND I DID NOT WANNA SPOILLL. *HIDES***

**So, yeah. Enjoy!**

Time goes by too fast for me to recognize the days and tell the hours apart, but I know today is the thirteenth of some month. I could only a glimpse of the calendar, and, surprisingly, the first thing I checked was the day and not the month. It's probably still September.

Again, images of the day Lena and I attempted to escape the prison that is Portland start floating through my mind. I remember the awful pain—I wish that even covered it—that I felt when the first bullet made contact with my skin. But what hurt me the most was seeing her look back and actually hesitate. I don't know if I did the right thing. Is she alive? Is she dead? Did she survive?

I'll never know.

I've been going in and out of consciousness. It's like playing hide and seek with the world. I think I like hiding better. If it makes me a coward, then so be it. I didn't like it, not before Lena, but sometimes the right thing to do, the thing you have to do in order to live the life you want to live, is hide.

The life I want is far away from here, wherever "here" is. My life, my _dream _life, is in the Wilds, somewhere far away.

_Maybe she's already moved on. What if it's not September? What if it's been a year and you're not there and she needs someone? Who's there?_

Someone enters the room. I pretend to be unconscious. They take one look at me. I can feel their eyes traveling up and down my body. The person grunts—it's a man.

"Kid, I know you're awake." When I don't move, he comes over to my side and kicks me in the ribs. I don't know how the hell he managed to get his leg up to my rib, but I grunt in pain, and when I open my eyes I see that the man has to be at least fifty years old. I'm still left wondering how the hell the guy managed to kick me that hard when he's that old.

"So, how're you feeling after the cure, kid?" The guy asks. Oh. The cure. I'm supposed to be cured now, apparently, but I've been too unconscious to remember.

"I'm okay." I shrug like it's no big deal. It is, because it didn't work and I miss her. I miss Lena so much it hurts, and I need her back, but she's not here, and it's all because of me. "What month is it?"

The guy gives me a funny look before saying, "September. Are you sure you're okay?" His voice, however, holds no concern—it's what he's trained to do, how he's trained to act.

I will my voice to sound as emotionless as his as I say, "Yes. I am fine. When will I get out of here?" Is it just me, or did I sound desperate toward the end?

I hope that he won't notice it.

"In a few hours," the man says. "You're going to be living with Halloway's. You know them, right?"

My mouth goes dry. I don't know how to speak for moments, not that I'd want to. Then I realize I'm supposed to give him an answer, so I swallow every bit of sadness I have left, level my voice, and say, "Yes. I'll be living with the Halloway's."_  
><em>

OoOoO

Five hours later, we arrive at the Halloway's house. The family greets me as any would: showing no emotion, except Grace, who is quiet, in a corner. I meet her eyes, and they show me hope, hope that Lena is alive and that she's fine and that yes, she can go and be free, just like her cousin.

I don't want to crush her dreams, so I look away.

When the guards—or whatever the hell they are—leave, Jenny turns to me. "You're the one that infected Lena." Her eyes narrow to slits. "Where is she?"

"Jenny!" Lena's Aunt Carol says. "Lena is…gone. He," she jerks my chin toward me, "could be saved. Cured. So don't be rude." She almost sounds like a real Aunt, and it takes me awhile to realize that she does it because she wants to be polite. _Polite. _Jenny nods mutely, and that's shocking, because Lena told me the girl talked like the world would end when she stopped, and ran up to her room.

Grace still sits in a corner silently.

"Where's my room?" I ask, breaking some of the tension that had settled. I try to sound emotionless yet again, but I probably sound scared.

"I'll show you," Carol tells me, and then she leads me upstairs, through the hallway—

—and into Lena's room.

"This is it?" I ask, disbelieving. _It's a test, _I tell myself, trying to calm down my too loud, too fast heartbeat. I'm probably sweating. Carol must've seen something.

"Do you remember?" Carol says. Instead of compassion or anger or anything, her voice is blank, emotionless.

"Remember?" I realize I need to pretend, to pretend Lena never happened and that I was never in love, but it's hard, because it means that, if she ever shows up and I get to see her, I can't look at her the same or take her with me somewhere like the Wilds, where we can be ourselves and we can be together. I'll probably be married and maybe in college. And, God, I don't want to be. I just want Lena. Is that so hard?

Carol nods, a brief movement I maybe should not have caught her doing, but I did. I want to ask, _What?_but I don't. Instead, I wait until she leaves and then lock myself in the room.

My breath catches in my throat. It's horrible, so horrible, to see her room with all of her belongings, but no Lena. _A test. It has to be a test, and there has to be a camera. Come on, Alex. Do NOT get near anything._

It takes me several deep breaths and a lot of patience to let that sink in and prevent myself from scanning everything—her journals and closets and everything, and I may sound like a creeper, but I'm not, I just miss her and it's been forever, and she's _gone, _not dead, but _gone. _I should be glad she's not gone, that she's still here, but is it so bad that I'm not? Is it so bad that all I want is her, here, with me?

I guess it's bad here, in this place, this prison in which so many people living, so many people like Lena who want to be free. I thought Hana would be one of those people, but she turned out to be more talk than action. I just hope she's happy. I don't know if you can be happy after you get the cure. I just hope she doesn't live in pain. I miss her, and I'm sure that, wherever she is, Lena misses her, too.

There's a knock on the door, a sound so loud it makes me jump, startled. "Who is it?" I ask, wincing when my voice wavers.

No one answers. There's another knock.

_Grace._

I get to my feet and run to the door. She's standing there, her gaze on the floor, and I open the door widely to let her know that she can come in. She does, and I close the door. There's no one around, which is a good thing.

The room is silent. I fiddle with a loose string of my shirt and pace back and forth. She knows I'm not cure. She's known ever since I entered the house, but she didn't tell anyone. I know she'd never. She loves Lena. I love her. We all do. Love is a universal thing, when you take it away, there is nothing.

Why would anyone wanna take away love? It's what I feel like shouting sometimes to the world and to Portland and to just everyone, and, even if they don't listen, they know that some people, even if they're not important to society, care about things other than hate and unhappiness, because who is really happy not hating and not being angry and not being passionate and unloving? Maybe that's the point. They don't want us to be happy. They want us to be stable, like animals being put to sleep. Like robots. I could go on and on, and I am. My mind is going too fast, listing off everything wrong with the society, but I can't help it.

"Do you," the sound of her voice startles me, "miss her?" She's looking at me with big, innocent eyes. I can't be strong for her. I can be strong for Lena and everyone else, but this girl that looks about five seems stronger than Lena and I together.

So, I say, "Yes." The girl cannot be lied to. Lena told me how Grace said nothing, and I know why. Lena never told me, but I know. She's like Lena, only she's realized who she is and who she wants to be before she's even old enough to study anything, before she's old enough to see anything. She knows something. She knows everything.

And she's more than a decade younger than me.

"I miss her, too." She sits in Lena's bed—the one that now belongs to me, the one I can't bear to look at because I'm afraid I'll burst into tears. It's stupid. She's a girl. I'm a boy. And now we're stuck in different worlds; me in hers, she in mine.

"You loved her, didn't you?" Grace whispers, and I'm in shock for more than a minute, so I don't move. I can barely breathe. Not because Grace is asking me such a question—of course I loved her, and I'd yell that to the world any other time—but because she said the world "love" like she knows what it is. And then it hits me. She does. She loves her parents and Lena and they don't love her back, and she's just a girl who's alone, so alone, and it breaks my heart.

"Yes," I repeat, "I do."

"She'll come back," Grace says firmly, and I wonder who she's trying to convince. She frowns one time before hopping off my bed. "I miss her. I saw you two go, and I finally let her go. I knew she'd be safe with you, the guy she loved." She whispers the last word. "But now I don't." She closes her eyes in what seems to be a silent prayer before giving me a small smile and telling me, "Check and see if there's anyone outside." She's still Grace, the wise, little girl that doesn't speak, but she's spoken. She speaks to the one who listen.

"No one here," I whisper after I check. "Go. And thank you." She nods at my words and tiptoes out of my room. I watch her go, silently, her words hitting me all with full force. She trusted me more than anything, and I disappointed her. She's not mad, though. She's worried about her cousin, about the person she _loves, _the person _we _love. I'm scared. She's scared. But Lena is strong. And she'll come back.

For me.

Because I would do the same for her.


End file.
